I wanted to ask him if he wanted to talk about it, but I realized that if he had, he would've done so already. "Okay, I guess I'll go. Unless you need something else?"
Lex just shook his head. He actually looked disappointed. But that didn't make any sense because he seemed eager for me to leave. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him what the hell was going on when he said, "Thanks for the ride. Bye, Gideon."
Not “See you later, Gideon.” Not “I'll call you, Gideon.”
Bye, Gideon.
It was a dismissal, pure and simple.
I told myself it was a good thing as I made the drive back to my house. If being friends with Lex was anything like the roller coaster of emotions that it had been today, no thanks. I thought back to the panic attack he’d had outside the store. It had been heartbreaking to watch him fall apart like he had. I couldn't even imagine what he was going through when it came to the highs and lows of his condition. The smallest things would've been successes, but then just as easily, the simplest of tasks could be complete failures for him.
By the time I was pulling into my driveway, I was beyond frustrated. At Lex and at myself. He'd given me every reason to just dismiss him from my thoughts, but nothing I did accomplished that. I had no fucking clue how to get him out of my mind.
I got out of the truck and slammed the door shut. As I walked to the house, I called for Brewer, but the dog didn't appear at my side like he normally did. I looked over my shoulder and saw that he was still sitting in the bed of the truck. He was staring in the direction we’d just come from.
"Brewer!" I called, but the husky mix only turned his head for a moment to look at me, and then he was staring at the driveway again. He whined a few times and then he started howling.
"Brewer!" I yelled. My dog completely ignored me and continued with his sad calls. I tried one more time to get Brewer's attention but gave up when the animal refused to even acknowledge me. It was yet another rejection and I was full up on being rejected.
"Fine!" I snapped before heading to the house. Brewer's incessant howling followed me inside. I yanked off my coat and ended up throwing it in the direction of the wall where I usually hung it. I busied myself with looking through my cabinets to figure out what I wanted to make for dinner. Thankfully, Brewer's mournful howls came to an end after about five minutes. I settled on making some spaghetti. I had just gotten the water boiling for the pasta when my phone rang.
"What?" I bit out as I put the thing on speaker.
"Gideon?"
I hated that my heart leapt into my throat at the sound of Lex's voice. In that moment, I kind of hated Lex too. I hated him for what he'd done to me, what he’d turned me into. Logically, I knew it wasn't his fault, but I needed to vent my frustration somehow.
"What?" I asked again. I suspected my tone had startled Lex because he didn't respond right away. But I wasn't about to apologize to the man who was driving me crazy. I was sexually frustrated, but worse, he was making me question everything about myself. I’d envisioned spending the rest of my days in Fisher Cove in quiet solitude, but now that I finally had it, all I could think about was Lex.
"Are you here?" he asked finally. He definitely sounded nervous. I tried to tell myself I didn't care if I was the one who was making him nervous with my attitude. He was the one who’d started this whole thing by accepting me one minute and then pushing me away the next.
"Am I where?"
"Here. At the cabin."
"No."
"Well, Brewer is."
"What?" I asked in disbelief. I stepped over to the window and checked my truck. Sure enough, the bed was empty. I let out a streak of curses as I went back to the stove and turned off the burner. "I'll be right there," I barked and then I hung up on Lex.
I was in a pretty decent snit by the time I pulled my truck into Lex's driveway. Lex was sitting on his porch with Brewer pressed up against his legs, happily enjoying his attention. I wanted to strangle the dog and the man.
"Brewer, come!" I called as I got out of the truck.
The husky mix ignored me.
"Get your ass over here right now!" I yelled.
My dog didn't move toward me. But he did lie down. I instantly felt guilty for my harsh tone. I’d found Brewer on the side of the road a few months after I'd returned to Fisher Cove. The dog had been emaciated and scared to death, but he'd still come to me when I'd offered him some food. In addition to the obvious neglect, there had been signs that the dog had been abused at some point in his life, so it had taken me quite a while to fully earn his trust. Once I had, I'd been rewarded greatly.
I was about to crouch down and call Brewer to me in a more gentle manner when Lex climbed to his feet and said, "You don't need to be a dick, Gideon! You're obviously scaring him!"
He was right, of course. But to have him call me out on my behavior only served to worsen my mood. "Maybe he should be scared! I mean, obviously I'm a pretty shitty person to be around, so who can blame him for taking off?" I knew I was being petty and childish, but I was truly afraid of what I would do if I got anywhere near Lex. All the worry, confusion, and sexual frustration from the past week had been churning inside of me almost nonstop and I was afraid that even one more word from the man at the heart of it all would send me over. No, I’d never raise a hand to Lex, but I knew I could end up saying something I regretted.
I realized it had been a mistake to come here for my dog without trying to cool off first. "You know what, you two can have each other!" I yelled as I spun toward my truck.
"Maybe if you weren't a lying sack of shit, your dog wouldn't have taken off on you!" Lex shouted.
His words caught me off guard. I turned and saw that he was making his way down the porch and he was doing it surprisingly well. Of course, he had Brewer to offer him a little bit of extra support as he moved.
"I'm not the one who buries his head in the fucking sand every time things get hard!"
"Are you sure about that?" Lex asked. He'd made it to my truck and was standing just feet from me. His cheeks were bright red and his stunning eyes were brimming with anger. Anger that I still had no clue what the source was. "Isn't this entire fucking town one big sandbox to you?”
"You don't know what you're talking about!" I snarled.
"And you don't know when to tell the fucking truth!" Lex shot back.
"I don't know what you're talking—" I tried to say again.
"Aisle seven!" Lex snapped as he practically got in my face. "Aisle seven, Gideon!"
"Aisle seven?" I said in confusion. Despite my anger, my body was going crazy with desire as Lex's frame brushed against mine. My back was against the truck, so unless I pushed past him, there was no place to go to escape him. I fisted my hands to keep from grabbing him.
"I don't know what your game is, but don't use me to fuck around with the women you're screwing."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about Delia and whatever other women you're fucking! Delia may be a self-absorbed bitch, but even she doesn't deserve to be played with." Lex actually stabbed me in the chest with his finger as he spoke while Brewer whined incessantly as he tried to push his body in between ours.
"I'm not fucking Delia. Or anyone else, for that matter."
"So what, were the condoms for your own hand?" Lex practically spat.
"Condoms?" I was so completely lost by the conversation that all I could do was parrot the things that Lex was saying.
"Condoms, Gideon! Aisle seven! Kenny told me that aisle seven is where they keep the condoms!" As Lex spoke, understanding finally dawned and I recalled the ridiculous lie I'd made up about aisle seven being for all the various types of creams that Merv's sold. But why in the hell was the little white lie causing such an extreme reaction in him? Even if I'd been buying condoms, why would that bother him so much?
"I can't believe I bought all that crap about you wanting to be my friend!" Lex snapped. "I actually thought you were a good gu
y, Gideon, but you’re just like all the others. You're like Grady!"
"I'm nothing like that son of a bitch!" I responded, my anger quickly returning. "And so far, being your friend hasn't exactly been the highlight of my life!"
Lex went silent for a moment and then said, "Well, at least we agree on something. Say hi to Delia or whatever woman—"
"I wasn't looking at condoms, damn it!" I snarled. "I was looking at—"
"At what?" Lex asked. I swore I heard a tremor in his voice.
"I lied about aisle seven because I didn't want you to know that I was looking at… at…" Humiliation crawled through me as I tried to get the words out.
"At what?" Lex repeated. "Just tell me, damn it!"
"Lube! I was looking at lube!" I admitted. And then before he could make any foolish assumptions about what the lube was for, I wrapped my arm around his waist and yanked him forward at the same time that I slammed my mouth down on his.
Chapter Thirteen
Lex
Even if I hadn't been blind, I never would've seen the kiss coming.
Never.
One minute, we were at each other's throats; the next, Gideon's mouth was crashing down on mine and I was struggling to understand what was even happening. But that lasted only about half a second because once my brain recognized the fact that Gideon's lips were indeed pressed against mine, everything shifted. It no longer mattered what we’d been fighting about or how upset I'd been or how the jealousy of believing Gideon was in some kind of physical relationship with a woman had been eating me alive. All that mattered was that Gideon was kissing me.
Me.
And fuck, did the man know how to kiss.
His lips were soft but firm as his mouth moved ravenously over mine. His desperation was intoxicating. I was dimly aware of his arm going around my waist and the other cradling the back of my head, but I was too entrenched in the way he was consuming me to even care about anything else. When Gideon's tongue licked over the seam of my lips, I automatically opened for him.
And then it was game on.
I expected his exploration of my mouth to be tentative and reserved like Grady's had always been. But instead, Gideon took exactly what he wanted and gave it back to me a thousand times over. Even if the physical sensation of his tongue licking over mine hadn't sent me skyrocketing, his demanding nature would have. As much as I'd always hated the idea of needing to be taken care of when I'd been a kid, when it came to romantic relationships, I'd secretly wanted someone who would just know what I needed and give it to me.
And with one kiss, Gideon was doing just that.
I had no clue how long the kiss lasted but by the time he tore his mouth from mine, I was lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. I was also wrapped around Gideon like a vine. Not to mention that somehow in the process of kissing him, I'd ended up with my back up against his truck. I was glad to hear that Gideon was breathing as hard as I was. His forehead was pressed against mine and he still had one hand on my back and the other carded through my hair.
"You should come to my house and have spaghetti with me."
The words should've been funny considering what had happened right before them, but nothing about his statement was humorous. I suspected it was his way of trying to deal with what had just happened, and I got that. I'd had my fair share of fantasies about him from the moment he'd saved my life, but none of them had done reality justice. My fingers itched to touch every bit of his bare skin. I wanted to taste it too. I'd been with a decent number of men since I'd lost my virginity at the ripe old age of twenty-two, but I couldn't remember any sex act I’d performed with any of my previous lovers that could even hold a candle to a single kiss with Gideon. I was afraid of what that meant.
So yeah, spaghetti sounded like a pretty damn good idea.
"Okay," I said. To my surprise, Gideon's mouth brushed over mine again in the softest, sweetest of kisses and then his hand was closing around mine. He led me to the passenger side of the truck and opened the door for me. He’d done it before but somehow this time it felt different. Like he wasn’t opening the door for me because I was blind, but because he wanted to. Because it was something a person would do for someone they cared about.
When Gideon shut the door, I forced myself to pull in one breath after another to try to calm my raging libido. I had no clue what was going to happen when we got to his house. I didn't care, so long as he didn't tell me the whole thing had been a mistake.
Even if it had been.
Gideon started the truck up and then whistled for Brewer. I heard the dog jumping into the truck. It served to remind me of why Gideon had shown up at the cabin in the first place. That led to me remembering our conversation… okay, our fight.
I still had no clue how a discussion about condoms and lube had turned into Gideon kissing me, but I wasn't going to argue with him about it. I absently wondered if he had both of those items at home. I actually carried a condom and lube packet in my wallet, but since I hadn't been expecting to leave the cabin, I didn't have my wallet on me.
"What?" I heard Gideon ask.
I looked his way and said, "Huh?"
So smooth, Lex. So smooth.
"You're smiling," Gideon said.
"You're not?" I asked. If I hadn’t been smiling about the condom and lube that were sitting useless on my kitchen counter, I most surely would've been smiling about the fact that Gideon had kissed me. What if the man next to me wasn't feeling the same way?
"Truth?" he asked.
Oh God, that didn't bode well for me. But I nodded anyway.
"I'm not sure what I'm feeling at the moment."
Just like that, my good mood evaporated. I wanted to ask him what he was confused about. Then I wanted to know what I was even doing there. Why were we even going to his place? But then an ugly truth hit me as I thought about what little I knew of Gideon's past.
Specifically, his wife. Hell, I didn’t actually know if he’d even been married. He’d only mentioned having a daughter. He most certainly didn’t need to have been married for that…
Oh hell.
"Gideon, please tell me that wasn't your first kiss with a guy." I knew I probably should've waited to have this particular conversation until we got to his place, but there were some questions that needed answers like right now. When Gideon didn't respond, my stomach dropped out and I was sure a little moan of despair escaped my throat before I could cover it up.
"Oh God," I said softly. I'd avoided this exact scenario my entire life. I'd specifically pushed Gideon away after learning about the whole aisle seven thing because I'd known I wouldn't be able to handle being around the man while he was involved with someone else. I’d also never pursued straight men for the exact same reason.
And now I’d gone and kissed him. He'd been experimenting with me for whatever reason, but that kiss had been a whole lot of real for me.
"I think you should probably take me back home," I murmured.
"I don't think so," Gideon responded.
"Gideon, I'm not an experiment—"
"Lex, I just had the best fucking kiss of my entire life. My. Entire. Life. I'm not sitting here thinking about you like you’re some kind of goddamn experiment. I'm just trying to deal with the fact that I'm a thirty-eight-year-old father of two who was married to the same woman for fifteen years and I've only just now had the kind of kiss that you remember for the rest of your life. That's the only reason I'm not in a place where I can talk about it right now, okay?"
His speech stunned me into silence, though I did manage to squeak out an, "Okay," so he’d know I wasn't ignoring him. I didn't know which part of his statement to mentally tackle first. The fact that the kiss had been as moving an experience for him as it had been for me or the fact that he'd been married for so long and had two children.
I was nervous as the minutes ticked by because I had no clue what was going to happen when we got to his place. It wasn't really even an issue of whether or not we were go
ing to have sex because it was a whole lot more complicated than that. Gideon hadn't said it, but my gut was telling me that his sexuality was going to play heavily into whatever conversation we had. Just because he'd enjoyed kissing me didn't mean he’d actually been ready to kiss me. Or do anything else.
A person's libido could make them behave in the most peculiar of ways, but it was ultimately the mind they had to overcome to accept who they really were. Just because Gideon wanted me didn't mean he wanted to want me.
"Don't move," Gideon commanded when he pulled the truck to a stop. I wasn't one for taking orders but taking orders from Gideon was an entirely different thing. I supposed that was something else I didn't want to think too much about.
I heard Gideon get out of the truck and a handful of seconds later, my door was opening. To my surprise, Gideon again took my hand to help me out but instead of looping it through his arm, he held on to it. He kept our bodies close as he shut the truck door and led me to his house. He wasn't wearing gloves, so I could feel how warm his palms were. The strength in his fingers was intoxicating, as was the roughness of the pads of his fingertips. I imagined them exploring every inch of my body. An involuntary shudder went through me.
"Cold?" Gideon asked.
"Not even a little bit," I admitted. I could feel Gideon's eyes on me as we walked.
"Steps are a couple feet away." Gideon slowed down as he spoke and by the time we reached the porch steps, he’d come to a stop so I could feel the first step out with my foot. He stayed by my side as we climbed the steps and then I heard the creak of the door as he pushed it open. Part of me just wanted him to grab me and drag me inside to do whatever he wanted to me just so I wouldn't have to deal with the hard conversation I knew was coming.
Gideon didn't say anything as he closed the door. He released my hand, so I took a few steps forward so I wouldn't be in his way as he shut the door. A moment later, I could feel him behind me. My skin tingled when his hands skimmed each side of my throat. He maneuvered his hands lower but it was only so he could get my coat off. I heard the fabric rustle as he presumably hung my coat up, but then there was silence. This time, there wasn't that inherent need to call out to him to make sure he was still there. I knew he was. I could hear him breathing and I could smell his cologne or aftershave or whatever it was.
Foreseen: Lex (The Four Book 2) Page 14
